Remnants of the 20th Century

A short documentary by Baby Boomer Boy about lost artifacts from the last century and the previous millennium. You can find these discarded items in flea markets, yard sales and garage sales throughout the civilized world.

Author's Note 12-2-11: I added a soundtrack to my original 2010 silent version, originally posted on 4-4-10. Hope you like it. I think it's much better with music.

Author's Note 11-07-13: This video was uploaded by Michael Casher to Blogger. You can't watch this video at YouTube because it does not exist there. That is another Google redirect which is nothing more than a lie to get you to watch other videos at YouTube instead of the uploaded video on this blog post. This new uploaded format at Blogger was introduced in November 2013 by Google without notice to anyone.

"All in the Family" in 25 Words or Less

American television producer Norman Lear's unbridled 1970's attack on WASP America, using situation comedy, stereotypes, social issues and hatred to make money for corporate America.

M*A*S*H*I*N*G America

M*A*S*H, a TV sitcom airing from 1972 to 1983, was about a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. Or at least it was supposed to be. Starring self-anointed feminist actor and Groucho Marx wannabe, Alan Alda, as Captain Hawkeye Pierce, M*A*S*H quickly degraded into an Alan Alda soapbox for anti-war and anti-American dissent after its first two seasons and the show's unscrupulous and opportunistic producers, writers, directors and cast never looked back. What ensued was the liberal, bleeding-heart, Baby-Boomer version of the Korean War, not a cool comedy about Army doctors and nurses.

What Baby-Boomer issues, you might ask? Well, the preposterous notion that men and women are interchangeable, for one thing. And the idea that marital infidelity, fornication, cross-dressing (even if it is just a "dodge" to get out of the Army) and homosexuality were perfectly natural and acceptable social behavior for the early 1950s. Oops, that's right, this sitcom was about the Korean War, not Vietnam. I guess the writers, producers and directors just plum forgot.

There's more. M*A*S*H tried its best to perpetuate Baby-Boomer myths like the misconception that doctors can operate on patients at peak levels after drinking the still dry and really talented surgeons can get away with all kinds of anti-social behavior then hide behind their unbeatable skills as surgeons when the crap hits the fan. Or putting the wounded enemy patients ahead of the American and Allied wounded for treatment. Or not tossing a Korean thief out on his ear when he robs you blind after you agree to put him through college in The States at your own expense. What twisted, illogical, ridiculous crap. What kind of role models were these for young American viewers who were already screwed up by having divorced parents or parents who were high most of the time or in jail for not paying their income taxes?

The funniest thing about M*A*S*H was McLean Stevenson as Colonel Henry Blake. But he left at the end of the third season, to be replaced by a 9-year view up Harry Morgan's incredibly large nostrils, along with "Colonel Potter's" boring, mundane, running commentary on life and everything Army. Considered by many to be "the worst career move in television history", McLean Stevenson's departure left the show at the mercy of Alan Alda and the writers who loved this pantywaist's shlocky delivery of their asinine lines that were anti-everything-traditional and heavy-on-the-Jewish-humor.

Larry Linville's portrayal of Major Frank Burns and Loretta Swit's Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan were the only other funny things left. But when Larry Linville departed after the fifth season, "Hot Lips" Houlihan became just plain Margaret Houlihan, a major feminist whiner with a big, man-hating axe to grind on our own personal prime time. More Baby-Boomer issues in place of 1950's army hospital comedy. More soapbox dissent in place of entertainment.

And why go into details about the other regular characters, like Radar O'Reilly, Spearchucker Jones, Ginger Bayliss, Father Mulcahy, Maxwell Klinger, "Trapper" John McIntyre, B.J. Hunnicutt and Charles Emerson Winchester? I mean, what can you say about a brown-noser, your token black character, your token black female character, a geeky guy who doesn't like girls, a homely cross-dresser, a lame comic sidekick, a lamer comic sidekick, and a rich, hateful snob that hasn't been said before?

But, as bad as it was, M*A*S*H the TV Show was still better than M*A*S*H the Movie, starring Donald Sutherland as Captain Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce and Elliot Gould as Captain John "Trapper" McIntyre. M*A*S*H the Movie was the most boring, the least funny and the lewdest Army comedy I've ever seen. Robert Duvall was sorely miscast as Frank Burns and Sally Kellerman's brief offering of eye candy (as a much hotter "Hot Lips" Houlihan than Loretta Swit could ever be) was, unfortunately, this dog of a movie's only memorable moment.

So, that's not saying much for the Alan Alda vehicle that took us for a whining, crying, anti-war ride every week for a dozen long years, without mercy. Yep, for an unbelievable 12 seasons this schizophrenic sitcom seesawed back and forth between cheesy, sight-gag, back-biting, sarcastic humor and the depths of utter, tear-jerker, self-inflicted despair before CBS finally put this out-of-touch sitcom out of its own misery in 1983 with a two-hour finale entitled, "Goodbye, Farewell and Amen". This last episode of M*A*S*H aired live on big-screen TVs in taverns, clubs, restaurants, sports bars and Baby-Boomer watering holes all across America. It even set a record as "the most-watched television episode in U.S. television history", a fact that should have come as no surprise to anyone. Hell, nothing loves company like misery. Especially when alcohol is involved.

The "Roman Send-off" for this highly overrated TV sitcom was affectionately dubbed the "M*A*S*H Bash" by its millions of rabid, teary-eyed fans and, in fact, this finale was nothing more than 12 years worth of recaps and show highlights rolled into two hours of public drinking, group hugging and therapeutic crying jags. The fact that M*A*S*H immediately went into syndication after its highly-publicized euthanasia proved the theory that mystery, murder and crime don't attract nearly as big a TV viewing audience as sexual innuendo, social commentary and human suffering packaged together as a situation comedy.

Milton Berle in a Thimble

Milton Merle was a sickening, lip-heavy, nasty, lewd, unfunny comedian who was known as "Uncle Miltie" and "Mr. Television" during the so-called "Golden Age of Television".

Milton Berle's idea of stand-up comedy consisted of insulting people and cross-dressing, as though both were the most natural and inoffensive thing in the world.

American TV viewers west of the Hudson River eventually proved his theory about comedy to be wrong.

"Candid Camera" in 25 Words or Less

1960's black-and-white reality show where Alan Funt secretly filmed unsuspecting people and made fun of them without getting arrested, sued, slapped, beaten, or shot.

"Nash Bridges" in More Words Than It Deserves

This was a pathetic 1990's television crime drama that even ran into the 21st Century before viewers finally realized that this stupid, sleazy series portrayed The San Francisco Police Department as a bunch of liberal freaks who couldn't keep it zipped long enough to arrest anyone, especially if the suspects represented the city's GLBT "community".

Star Don Johnson, almost but not quite reinventing his Miami Vice role as Detective Sonny Crockett, portrayed Nash Bridges, a skirt chaser whose misplaced priorities made him love everyone just so damn much that the fine line between right and wrong, and good and evil, seemed to get in the way of his hooking up with yet another woman. An unconventional woman, of course, by looks and trade, who'd fall for the expensive, offbeat ensembles he sported and that annoying, raspy laugh and agree to a mutually anticipated one-night-stand. Quite often, she was also the criminal he was investigating. No conflict of interest there, of course, according to the 1990's "anything goes" rules. More often than not, she wised up and skedaddled like someone who had a brain. So, Nash, persistent as a dog with two erections, simply rubbed out that line and never looked back.

Nash Bridges had a partner and side-kick, naturally. Character Joe Dominguez was played by veteran cheesy comic actor Cheech Marin who gave up his quest for the ultimate marijuana high to portray an aging Hispanic-American Yuppie who worshiped the shallow and artificial world of Yuppie things. Like wearing over-priced, hideous-looking suits, driving top-of-the-line European automobiles and making money hand-over-fist off other unsuspecting Yuppies, whether they were members of San Francisco's GLBT "community" or not. Before "Nash Bridges" aired, Cheech Marin made you laugh as a lazy, unambitious lover of life. But, as part of the "Nash Bridges" cast, he made you want to puke.

Nash ran the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) of the SFPD where Joe was his next-in-command. This unit evolved over time as people came and went from the show. Some of them were good investigators (characters Harvey Leek, Bryn Carson and Michelle Chan, portrayed by Jeff Perry, Mary Mara and Kelly Hu) and some of them were nothing more than walking erections, like Inspector Evan Cortez, portrayed by Jaime Gomez, and Rick Bettina, played by Daniel Roebuck. Evan's round-the-clock, skirt-chasing exploits made Nash's nocturnal prowling look innocent by comparison. Evan Cortez and his string of female targets, including the first ex-wife and daughter of his boss, Nash Bridges, almost single-handedly transformed "Nash Bridges" from a TV crime drama into yet another predictable, sordid, formulaic soap.

One of the soapiest (and creepiest) things about "Nash Bridges" was Nash's father, Nick Bridges, portrayed by James Gammon. This was the seediest and most aggravating part of the show for me. Nash's two ex-wives couldn't hold a candle to Nash's raspy-voiced, cigar-smoking, skirt-chasing father for making lots of soapy trouble. Instead of being an old man with Alzheimer's, aging gracefully and enjoying what family and time he had left, Nick Bridges was the old man from hell and any old woman's worst nightmare. Nick Bridges couldn't keep it zipped, either, and this seemed to be a feature of this sleazy series that apparently attracted a lot of sick fans. Instead of being a grandfather who smoked a pipe in his slippers and easy chair, Nick Bridges was a dirty old man whose addiction to women, cards, cigars, and the ponies made him the perfect anti-flyover grandfather. Just the kind of dad and granddad that makes San Franciscans so proud and so cutting edge, while the rest of America is stuck with upholding the traditional values and virtues of grandfatherhood. No wonder Nash called his father "Nick" instead of "Dad". Apparently, "Dad" is no longer cool in America the Beautiful.

This ludicrous show almost seemed to go out of its way to convince American viewers that it was perfectly all right to let the good times roll and to hell with the consequences. But, every now and then, they would have Nash actually put a bad guy in the slammer temporarily and the bad guy was usually a white heterosexual man who spent an awful lot of money on clothing and fine dining. And that seemed to be the real purpose, albeit underlying, for airing "Nash Bridges". To showcase San Francisco as the jewel of the West Coast and San Franciscans as super-educated and super-cool Yuppies who wore the best labels and frequented all the best restaurants. As if any of that crap ever mattered in life. "Nash Bridges" was a deliberate snub to regular Americans in the fly-over states but no one seemed to get it.

And any stupid, redneck hillbilly from Appalachia could have told you that.

“Leave it to Beaver” in 25 Words or Less

This was a 1950's TV sitcom about a brainless boy repeatedly getting into trouble and exasperating his clueless, micro-managing parents and his too-perfect-to-be-real older brother.

The Wonder of Disney

More impressive to me than the automotive empire that Henry Ford built with his “assembly line” or the steel dynasty of Andrew Carnegie was the magical kingdom without a king created by Walt Disney in the mid-20th century.

The “house that Uncle Walt built” had television shows like “Disneyland” on ABC, which premiered on October 27, 1954, and which had prime time offerings that included wonderful family shows like “Davy Crockett”, starring Fess Parker.

When “Disneyland”, the TV Show, moved to NBC in 1961 it was broadcast in color and renamed “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color” and it later became “The Wonderful World of Disney”. It was family entertainment at its best and it offered American children a wholesome opportunity to wish upon a star and see what happened next.

Disney meant Disneyland, the theme park in California, and later “Walt Disney World” in Florida. Walt Disney brought us the “Mickey Mouse Club” each weekday on TV in the late 1950s and dozens of animated films and “G-Rated” feature films, including quality westerns and action/adventure movies with big-name stars.

When Walt Disney died in 1966 his dynasty continued to flourish but the entertainment empire that Disney built was not the thing that really impressed me about Walt Disney. It was the man, himself. Here was a man who loved entertaining children and who dared to dream of mystical realms and magical kingdoms and of wonderful things that were bigger than himself.

And that kind of humble, hands-on, American entrepreneurial spirit hasn’t been seen or heard from since.